Private Island Ownership Is Intensifying
Covid-19 has caused a rethink about the realities of a private, protective bubble like no other.
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Escaping to your own private island is perhaps the ultimate default fantasy. The dream of a Neverland where quotidian rules dissolve in the tropical sun has long held universal appeal, even before the Covid-19 pandemic instilled a fear of human proximity. It’s an almost primal yearning, one that has infiltrated high culture and low, from Shakespeare’s The Tempest to reality TV’s Temptation Island.
Until recently, the possession of one’s very own sea-fringed pseudo-kingdom remained, for most of us, a pipe dream. But now that isolation has taken on the urgency of a government mandate, and the bonds that tie us to physical workplaces are disintegrating, more and more people are considering whether owning an idyllic rock somewhere is less fantastical and more fundamental. The word “isolation,” after all, comes from the Latin insula, which means island.
Two years ago, when Edward de Mallet Morgan, a broker for Knight Frank’s super-prime international residential division, first sent out details for Little Pipe Cay, an approx. $115 million private island in the Bahamas, the response was lukewarm. “They couldn’t justify the management costs for the amount of time they would use it,” he says of potential buyers pre-pandemic. “Now that we can all work from home, the genie is out of the bottle. All of a sudden, a private island seems justifiable.” Inquiries have increased at least five-fold since January.
The palm-filled beach of Blue Island. Blue Island
The market is even hotter in the world’s farthest-flung archipelagoes, for those really looking to disappear into the blue yonder. Jacques Menahem, founder of French Polynesia Sotheby’s International Realty, normally gets two e-mails a week about private islands. Since March, that number has jumped to as many as 10 a day. “They are all looking for a remote area where they can control their environment and no one is going to tell them to put on a mask,” he says.
Even in colder climes, no-frills islands priced as low as approx $140,000 are selling particularly well, says Farhad Vladi, a specialist island broker based in Germany, citing Canada, Norway and Sweden (home to 267,570 islands) as hot spots.
“Nobody needs an island,” says one owner, who is selling his Bahamian retreat, Blue Island, for approx. $100 million through Sotheby’s and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It is fundamentally an idea: that of the Englishman in his castle.”
Inchconnachan, a thickly wooded 40-hectare island in the middle of Loch Lomond, on the southern edge of the Scottish Highlands Inchconnachan
That concept is extremely deep-rooted in our history and culture. In England, island status was once specifically linked to exceptionalism and independence, recently exhumed in the form of Brexit but best expressed by Shakespeare in Richard II:
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
The English have always had a high opinion of themselves, but that said, a moat defensive is exactly what the affluent private individual seeks today, though the thwarted invaders are most likely presumed to take the form of irritating neighbours, intrusive paparazzi or, yes, deadly viruses. A natural fortress was also what monks sought some 1400 years ago, when they built austere cells on Celtic islands. Utopia, the perfect republic envisaged by Sir Thomas More in 1516, exists on an imaginary isle.
The pool at the main house on Little Pipe Cay, which sits in the relatively protected shallow waters of the Exuma archipelago. Knight Frank
But such solitude is not always blissful. D. H. Lawrence’s 1927 short story “The Man Who Loved Islands” describes a private-island owner-driven mad by isolation and eventually destroyed by the elements. Menahem advises his clients that islands involve “a lot of loneliness. It’s like living on a boat alone in the sea, only the boat does not move.”
This extreme seclusion is exactly what appeals to modern-day shut-ins. “I own an island in New Zealand, and my neighbour is a hermit,” says Vladi. “He has not allowed anyone except me on his island for 40 years, and we only talk once a year. He is very happy.”
Islands also fascinate the survivalist, the prepper, the homesteader, the libertarian, those who, for reasons of ideology or wealth, bristle against state regulation. In 2008, Patri Friedman, a software engineer at Google, set up the Seasteading Institute, which aims to create autonomous communities on artificial floating islands as an experiment in new forms of governance. None has so far worked out (in one notable case last year, a Bitcoin trader fled his floating home off the coast of Phuket after being charged by the Thai government with a national-security offence that carries a possible death sentence). But the appeal of islands as utopian refuges has intensified.
Blue Island in the Bahamas is the only private Caribbean island to have a jet-length airstrip. Blue Island
“The risk of something like the current pandemic happening again is potentially quite high,” says Blue Island’s owner. “And when it hits, you need a staff house, a guesthouse and a main house all ready. You need to not have to go somewhere else to buy food or diesel.” The other motivator, he believes, is civil unrest. “I understand and support the Black Lives Matter campaign, but it makes a lot of people nervous when they see riots. More people are buying gold. My neighbour keeps six months of canned food and water in his basement.
Island buyers tend to be “individualistic, with above-average intelligence and very nature-minded,” says Vladi. “These people want to have control. They like the feeling of being self-sufficient and having no neighbours.”
A typical example is a recent buyer in French Polynesia: “I just sold an island for half a million to an American from Lake Tahoe,” says Menahem. “It’s virgin land, very remote, no airstrip, a real expedition to go there. All he has are coconut trees and plenty of mosquitoes.”
Motu Moie, an 8-hectare island in French Polynesia, for sale via Sotheby’s International Realty for approx. $8.8 million. Sotheby’s International Realty
Islands appeal to those who have been successful in business, says Steve Donovan, the broker for Blue Island. “By definition, a person who has the ability to buy a private island has overcome many challenges and seized opportunities in life,” he says. “They like to conquer.”
They also like to know the risks. The number-one question from potential buyers, according to Donovan, who says he has recently seen a doubling of interest in the 283-hectare property, is whether their investment could be wiped out by a hurricane. That particular threat is somewhat dependent on location. The Abaco Islands, on the Atlantic rim of the Bahamas, suffered extensive hurricane damage last year. Little Pipe Cay and Blue Island are nestled in the Exumas, a comparatively sheltered chain, which is also home to Johnny Depp’s Little Hall’s Pond Cay.
“Luckily, the Exumas don’t usually get the full brunt, as they’re on the inner ring and the water is very shallow, so storm surge is not a great risk,” says Morgan. “But you do have to think about nature. How will the salt and sea affect the landscape and infrastructure, the wiring, the roof tiles?”
A pier and cabana jutting out from Blue Island. Blue Island
Every buyer should assume that all costs, from construction to repairs and supplies, will be 25 to 30 per cent higher than on the mainland, says Vladi. In addition to the standard amenities of a vacation home, you might need to take into account desalination, sewage and electricity. Will you require a landing pad? A seaplane? How many boats? Insurance considerations include flooding, hurricane damage and expropriation, in case the local government happens to requisition your land for public use.
“You have to think, not dream,” says Menahem. “You need to have a large maintenance budget and a handyman on-site, or it will cost you a lot of money to fly someone in every time something breaks down. You need to buy two of everything so you have backups, and you have to have space to store it all.”
According to the owner of Blue Island, who has bought and sold five Bahamian isles (his family also has a stake in a Scottish one), an indispensable investment is an experienced island manager to oversee the building and maintenance of “houses and power plants and harbours and landscaping.” His largest single expense on Blue Island was installing a 1730-metre asphalt runway—the only jet airstrip on a private island in the Caribbean. “We had 40 men working on the runway, and had to build accommodation for all of them.”
The dining view from Little Pipe Cay. Knight Frank
Annual running costs at Little Pipe Cay, the former home of Michael Dingman, a billionaire industrialist, are approx. $2 million for five houses and a large staff village. “It’s not cheap, but it’s probably cheaper than owning a superyacht,” says Morgan. “You can come in with a toothbrush and tap straight into a functioning machine.” Watching the behind-the-scenes operation is “like being on deck in a battleship,” he adds.
In order to recoup a little of their expenditures, many owners sacrifice some of their cherished privacy and rent out their islands. In the Exumas, Over Yonder Cay can be leased for 12 people at approx. $60,000 a night from its owner, the beret-wearing Texas financier Ed Bosarge. Sir Richard Branson charges approx. $140,000 a night for Necker Island (sleeps 40), which he bought in 1979 for around $160,000 in today’s money. Should Little Pipe Cay’s future ruler wish to make some cash on the side, he or she could charge $67,000 to $108,000 a night, Morgan estimates.
As for return on investment, it’s probably wise to measure yields in terms of lifestyle rewards. A private island is definitely not a liquid asset. “My view on the Bahamas is you can usually sell an island one year in 10,” says Mr Blue Island.
A bungalow on Motu Moie. Sotheby’s International Realty
According to Morgan, those who are in the market for top, turnkey plots tend to view them as components in a portfolio that might include rare wine, diamonds and art. “Most of these luxury assets have been performing very well and giving great returns,” he says. Biased though he may be, he ranks Little Pipe Cay as a “best-in-class asset,” equivalent to “the dozen houses in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat that could ask over $140 million, a penthouse in Monaco, maybe a house in Venice with listed frescoes on the ceiling.”
For those on a tighter budget—or for whom contemplating such details as composting toilets is a less than joyful prospect—a private island might seem like an encumbrance. This is the view of David Forbes, chairman of Savills Private Office, the department of the global real-estate brokerage that deals with ultra-high-net-worth clients. “In 40 years of selling at the very top end of the market, I have shown many private islands but never sold one,” he says. “They are a total money pit. Rent one for a month? Fine. Own it? No, thank you.”
During a trip to Mustique in February, Forbes was contacted by a client who asked to view a nearby island. “I showed him round it, and we were eaten alive by mosquitoes,” Forbes recounts. “He decided he didn’t really want to have to put in roads and negotiate with the St. Vincent government about electricity and water and sewage treatment. What seemed like cheap real estate began to seem like an expensive long-term proposition.”
The shores of Inchconnachan in autumn. Inchconnachan
Some people do not need to cross oceans to find their moated sanctuaries. In July, Emily Baker and her husband bought a five-acre island at the mouth of the Anclote River in Florida for around $670,000, after seeing it listed on the online broker Private Islands Inc. The couple, who run a digital marketing company in the nearby town of Treasure Island, had long had “a passion to one day own an island of our own,” says Baker. “We’ve always been kind of reclusive, and we wanted to be remote, not have other people walking around. We wanted something raw that we could make our own.”
After searching and saving for a decade, they found Sunset Key. “The moment we pulled our boat ashore on the beach, we felt like Tom Sawyer,” she says. “The island was quiet and still, just basic forest. Like there could be anything there, and nothing there. It was untouched.”
The couple expect to spend about $1.4 million over two years installing a dock and utilities and building a home for themselves; eventually, they hope to add guesthouses for family. “We’re looking into mother-in-law suites,” Baker says. She anticipates high insurance and maintenance costs, “because you can’t just run to Home Depot.” Eventually, they would like to operate a small business from the island, such as a farmers’ market or even a “drive-up” bar for boats.
A view from the forested Hudson River island. Houlihan Lawrence
If a little isolation goes a long way, real estate may be had at commuting distance from major cities. George and Amal Clooney’s flood-prone private island in the river Thames lies on the outskirts of Reading, a commuter town 65-kilometres west of London. In the Hudson River, a 100-minute train ride north from Grand Central, an islet complete with house and footbridge is for sale for $2.7 million. The sellers have lived there for 50 years, cultivating thickly planted grounds, where eagles perch in the trees and which shield the four-bedroom house from the mainland and nearby train tracks, while huge windows overlook the river. According to Melissa Carlton, of brokerage Houlihan Lawrence, a new owner’s duties would include keeping “the geese and beavers from coming ashore.”
A little more work is required at Inchconnachan, a 41-hectare oak-covered island in Loch Lomond, 48-kilometres north of Glasgow, in Scotland. Owned by the Earls of Arran since the 14th century and uninhabited for 20 years, it was put up for sale in July for about $880,000, with a view to enticing competitive bids. “A lot of people had been boxed in under lockdown and were desperate for space and countryside,” says Cameron Ewer, head of residential Scottish sales for Savills. “But the response surprised us all. We were inundated with calls from some very far-flung places.”
The listing describes the 1920s bungalow as “derelict” but says planning consent has been granted for a replacement lodge, boathouse and pier. The next owner will also need to install new drainage, water and power systems and, Ewer presumes, is likely to use it as a holiday home. “Anybody sensible will rent it out,” he says. “Not many people would live full-time in the middle of Loch Lomond. It’s a bit painful to have to get in a boat every time you run out of milk.”
Little Pipe Cay is surrounded by warm, shallow seas. Knight Frank
Yet for many, this requirement for self-sufficiency is exactly what appeals. The isolation and autonomy are the point, not the sacrifice. Whether palm-fringed atoll or chilly northern rock, the lure of the private island is the same: You are king.
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Will Smith, Tom Brady And More Celebs Are Team Owners in a New Electric-Boat League
Will all that star power deliver?
At one point during the debut broadcast of the world’s first electric-boat racing circuit, an on-air host stands on a platform overlooking the water and pummels the camera with enthusiasm: “I hope you’re ready for a landmark moment that can change the future of water transportation. The nerves, the excitement, the energy, it’s electric!” Behind her, a few dozen people mill about, leaning on a rail, drinking coffee, staring at their phones. One turns to look at her as if he’d like to ask her to keep it down.
That singular image might best encapsulate the cognitive dissonance that permeates the new UIM E1 Series Championship.
Take the boats. They look like remnants from a Star Wars movie, with long tapered noses leading to a glass-enclosed cockpit flanked on each side by a curving wing that acts as a hydrofoil, allowing the hulls fly over the surface while sending off huge sprays of white foam—but they’re nearly silent and, while they have explosive acceleration, they reach a top speed that wouldn’t even merit a ticket on an interstate.
E1 RACING
Then there are the team owners, a mélange of famous people who don’t necessarily bring to mind boats or racing. For that matter, they don’t really have anything to do with one another. Sorry, but it’s going to take more than a few brief hype videos and a recorded Zoom call in which the eight celebrities playfully talk trash before anyone believes the relationship between, say, NFL legend Tom Brady and pop singer Marc Anthony contains any real competitive juice.
There’s also the meeting of mission and money. The series defines itself as “committed to healing our coastal waters and ecosystems . . . through innovative clean technologies and aquatic regeneration.” But Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which controls more than $USD700 billion in cash largely derived from oil production, holds a chunk of equity and occupies the top sponsorship space. (Disclosure: Saudi Arabia’s Research and Media Group has invested in Penske Media Corporation, Robb Report‘s parent company).
E1 RACING
None of it quite seems to go together, and yet, by many measures that first race, held on an inlet of the Red Sea in Jeddah on Feb. 3, was a success. Expect a ninth team headed by a famous Hollywood actor. The series will host seven more races this year, starting on the waterways of Venice on May 12.
All of which raises the question: Can this actually work?
“Boat racing has never really caught on,” admits Powerboat P1 CEO Azam Rangoonwala, who’s been in offshore racing for more than 20 years and is also a principal on E1’s Team Aoki. “We got involved with E1 because we see an opportunity to finally make that breakthrough happen.”
In 2020, Rodi Basso spent a fair part of the year trying to visualise life after the pandemic. Unlike many others, Basso wasn’t so much longing for the way things had been, as attempting to conjure what new world would emerge.
An aerospace engineer who’d transitioned into motorsports, he’d held jobs at Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren Applied Technologies, but he’d recently stepped aside and moved to England in pursuit of some then-undetermined new challenge.
When the world shut down, he started running to stay fit and get out of the house, excursions on which he was often joined by Alejandro Agag, who lived nearby. Agag had founded Formula E and Extreme E, each a successful racing series featuring electric vehicles. The pair had met when Basso, through McLaren, developed an improved battery pack that allowed Formula E drivers to complete a race on a single charge.
E1 RACING
Basso, an Italian, and Agag, from Spain, debated the next big thing as they traversed the streets of London. Agag had invested in a start-up, Seabird, that was working on a foiling electric boat, and he asked Basso to help with the engineering. That simple request quickly morphed into a new idea—an electric boat racing series.
Perhaps no two individuals were better positioned to make it happen, and that night Basso created a deck summarizing the concept. The next day, he sent it to Agag who immediately signed on. The E1 World Championship Racing series was born amid expectations that it would become the next trending motorsports entity.
Within months they’d secured exclusive rights to stage electric boat races for 25 years through UIM, the international racing organization, and landed the PIF deal. Asked about the irony of Saudi oil money underwriting a series with a mission of “promoting sustainable energy use in marine sports,” and about assertions of greenwashing and sportswashing, Basso looked away from his computer screen.
Turning back, he offered a joke and then framed his answer in terms of investing strategies: “I focus on the day-to-day job of the people working at PIF who study markets and industries and place bets on what will bring the highest return. In that sense, it’s a privilege to be noticed and have that initial funding.”
Asked a similar question via email, Brady chooses not to respond, but otherwise replies: “This is a new competition and it has great growth potential, so it was a no-brainer for me to be involved with E1.”
Basso later adds another point: “PIF’s money allowed us to get going. It paid for the development of the boat and the series. Now we have to stand on our own as a functioning business.”
What will that look like?
Location, location, location. Part of the difficulty for boat racing has been the “where.” Contests usually took place offshore or on small—often remote—lakes that offered flat calm, neither of which are particularly spectator friendly.
In recent years, the Sail GP series has solved that problem with a global race circuit featuring smaller, more maneuverable versions of full America’s Cup boats slugging it out on metropolitan waterways, such as San Francisco Bay and Sydney Harbor. In contrast to traditional America’s Cup racing yachts, the smaller SailGP boats also reduce the costs of building, maintaining, outfitting, and shipping them to races around the world.
SAILGP
Besides that, the boat looks sleek, part spaceship, part waterbug, as it skitters above the surface. And while 50 knots (92.5 kmph) on a boat is fast—especially an open boat low to the water—it’s not an attention-getting number to the general public. Still, the Racebirds distinguish themselves with a burst of acceleration that’s visible when they compete.
The power comes from a Mercury outboard built specifically for the purpose, with input from Seabird. It has a booster that jacks the output from 100 kilowatts to 150 for 20 seconds per minute, adding to the notable jumps in speed and putting a focus on driver skill and strategy. Each team has two pilots—as they’re called—one male and one female, who alternate turns behind the wheel through a qualifying round, the semi-finals and finals.
“We’re now packaging the propulsion system to sell to other builders,” says Horne. “What drives me is the mission to electrify boats, so we want to partner with other companies out there and help build the infrastructure with fast charging that we’ll need.”
E1 RACING
The series’s green agenda goes beyond pushing the development of electric engines, high-output batteries and hydrofoils, which reduce drag in increase efficiency by lifting the boat’s hull out of the water. E1 intends to employ sustainable practices on-site at events—including the use of local vendors—and install and leave in place high-speed electric charging stations at each locale.
According to its website, organizers will collaborate on coastal restoration projects and education initiatives directed by chief scientist Carlos Duarte, an ocean ecology professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
“One of the barriers to ownership and sponsorship in powerboat racing has been the sustainability question,” says Rangoonwala of Powerboat P1. “E1 answers that question up front by building it into the mission.”
Whatever seeming contradictions arise from the use of PIF funds, the series has already had a real-world impact. Mercury Marine has incorporated much of the technology it developed for the Racebird engines into its Avator electric outboards. More than 12,000 Avators have been built in the last year. “Racebird was a good place for us to start,” David Foulkes, CEO of Brunswick Corp., Mercury’s parent, tells Robb Report. “It was a way to gain experience in a controlled environment, where the boats are centrally maintained.”
GETTY IMAGES
Basso calls Agag a “marketing genius” for the way he tapped into existing audiences for Formula E and Extreme E by luring well-known names from Formula 1 and extreme racing—and their social media followings—into the fold. It’s a proven approach, but one that would not work for E1. “Unfortunately, in powerboat racing, there are no star drivers or famous owners,” Basso says.
The alternative involved finding celebrities from other walks of life to invest in teams. “First, we approached Sergio Perez and evidently our presentation was done right because he joined, then Rafa Nadal signed up,” Basso says. “The rest came as a consequence of a sort of missing-out syndrome, which worked out nicely for us.”
The sell might have been easy, but the selections reflect the sort of calculated demographic cross-section that would make a pollster drool. Besides Brady, the white American hero of seven Super Bowls, Smith, the Black Hollywood superstar, Nadal, the internationally known Spanish tennis star, Anthony, the Grammy-winning musician with Latino roots, and Perez, a Formula 1 driver from Mexico, there’s Didier Drogba, a Black European soccer icon from Ivory Coast; Steve Aoki, a world-renown DJ of Japanese descent; Virat Kohli, a cricket star from India; and Marcelo Claure, a Bolivian tech entrepreneur.
All appear engaged at the outset, sitting for video interviews and promoting the series on social media. Four showed up for the opening race and Brady plans to be in Venice. “I’ve been involved in a few things since retiring but this racing series has been incredible,” Brady tells Robb Report. “I love competition and racing. Seeing the vision of the sport come to life has been very fun and fulfilling.”
Basso says he and Agag intentionally created a “business mechanism that would give owners skin in the game and keep them engaged.” The owners put up €2 million (about $2.15 million) to license a team. E1 owns the series and the boats and handles all the logistics, including transportation, for which they charge teams another €1 million. The buy-in, Basso says, will go up for Year 2, since three of the original eight license holders have already resold them at five times the initial investment.
To ensure those values keep rising, E1 plans to cap the series at 12 or 15 teams competing in 15 races, hopefully by Year 3, with five events in Asia, five in the Mid-East/Europe and five in the West, where potential venues include Miami, Mexico and Brazil.
To help control costs, the boats must run as they come out of the box, and though teams can hire as many engineers as they want back at headquarters, they can’t have more than seven crew members, including drivers, on the dock during races.
MERCURY MARINE
“They made some really smart decisions to limit costs at the outset,” says Ben King, one of of Team Brady’s co-principals. “The plan is to start modifying the boats in Year 3, which would mean greater outlays for teams, but by then, hopefully, the circuit will be well established.”
Teams can bring on sponsors outside those attached to the wider series, including everything from patches on pilot uniforms to on-the-boat decals to partnerships that showcase technology. Visibility shouldn’t be a problem. E1 has both linear and streaming deals with 120 broadcasters that range from Asia through India, MENA, Europe, and the Americas, where CBS owns the US television rights.
On the course at Jeddah, the four finalists line up for the rolling start of the final race, among them Team Brady. As the boats pass the marker buoy signaling the beginning of the first-ever E1 championship, three surge ahead while the Brady boat founders and wobbles forward, dropping to last.
In the previous heat, Brady’s Emma Kimiläinen finished third, meaning teammate Sam Coleman has to not just win the heat but make up the time deficit to claim the title. As the boats approach the first turn, Coleman mashes the booster and jolts forward, closing the gap and creating a three-boat bottleneck around the first buoy.
The scene turns chaotic as the boats speed through the curve within yards of each other and geysers of whitewater and churning wakes fill the space around them. Emerging into the straight, they jockey for the lead. “Racing these boats is super intense—insane,” says Coleman. “The trick is constantly managing the foil height. Too much power and the boat will drop and you’ll lose speed. The working window is so small, and while you don’t have engine noise, there’s feedback through cavitation and vibration that you have to learn to feel.”
E1 RACING
Most of the drivers have come from other disciplines, motorcycles, cars, even Jet Skis and WaveRunners. Coleman started in motocross, then teamed with his sister to become a world champion and two-time U.K. champ in P1 Powerboat. Whether it’s that experience or his feel for his craft, Coleman’s boat levels and rises high on its foils as it shoots to the front.
Through the next turns, Coleman’s lead builds, creating another bit of intrigue. The course layout consists of a small oval inside a larger one, something like a paperclip. Over a five-lap race, each driver must circumnavigate the inner oval four times and the outer once. As Coleman continues to pull away, the question of when to take the long lap rises.
E1 RACING
And while that gives the announcers something to talk about, it also highlights a shortcoming. The moments of close-quarters racing, the nuance of working the trim and booster and the strategic quirk of the long lap all make for good, engaging viewing. At the same time, the difficulty of keeping the boats running clean on the foils and the long lap spread the field, sapping most of the drama from the action. Those instances of intense, close-quarters racing are few and far between.
Ultimately, that’s what success will come down to: Will people understand the level of skill and strategy on display and will the competition hold up? A sustainability mission and a few 30-second hype videos from Tom Brady (whose team pulled through in Jeddah as the winner) provide a sense of purpose and attract eyeballs, but for people to continually show up and tune in—to pay up—the races themselves have to deliver.
Formula E and Extreme have made it work. Will E1? Ladies and gentlemen, start your very-quiet engines.
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10 Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About Porsche
The automaker is a sports car standard-bearer with a long, impressive history in racing.
Porsche has long stood at the pinnacle of automotive achievement. The automaker has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans 19 times—more than any other competitor—and has successfully competed in everything from rally racing to Formula 1. The history of Porsche vehicle production is equally impressive, as the company rose from the rubble of World War II to become one of the most widely recognised luxury and performance brands in the world today. Let’s dive into the history of Porsche with 10 facts you might not have known about the German brand.
Porsche Was Founded by an Ex-Mercedes Engineer
Ferdinand Porsche was born in 1875 in what is now the Czech Republic. Despite the fact that he had little formal education, from an early age Porsche was recognised as a brilliant engineer. In 1901, Porsche built the world’s first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle, a motorised carriage that used a Daimler internal-combustion engine to generate power for electric motors in the wheels. Soon, Porsche was hired as technical director of Stuttgart-based Daimler, where he worked on Mercedes race cars including the hugely successful Mercedes-Benz SSK.
Engineering Consultant
In 1931, Ferdinand Porsche launched the company that still bears his name today. It wasn’t a car-building operation: Dr. Ing h.c. F. Porsche GmbH was a consulting agency, supplying design and engineering expertise to various automakers. Soon after launching his company, Ferdinand Porsche received an assignment directly from German Chancellor Adolf Hitler: A project to build a simple, durable, affordable vehicle that could be purchased by everyday Germans, codenamed Volkswagen, or “people’s car.”
Porsche and World War II
Ferdinand Porsche unveiled the first Volkswagen prototype in 1935; in 1939, the Volkswagen factory began production, with Ferdinand Porsche appointed as an executive. As part of his work with the government of Nazi Germany, Porsche renounced his Czechoslovak citizenship, joined the Nazi Party, and became a member of the SS paramilitary group. Ferdinand Porsche contributed to the design and engineering of Nazi tanks and troop transport vehicles, and after World War II ended, he was arrested for war crimes including the use of forced labor, serving 20 months in prison in France.
Porsche Begins Building Its Own Cars
Following the end of World War II, Ferdinand Porsche’s son, Ferry, sought to build a sports car according to his father’s vision. In 1947, the first examples of the Porsche 356 were assembled in a small sawmill in Gmünd, Austria, where the Porsche family had moved operations to avoid Allied bombing. The 356 bore some resemblance to the Volkswagen, and like that vehicle, it used a rear-mounted four-cylinder engine along with some other VW components.
The 901, Or Rather, The 911
Porsche built several versions of the 356 until 1965, but by the end, the vehicle was badly out-of-date. Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, grandson of the company’s founder, designed a new rear-engine sports car, this time with an air-cooled six-cylinder engine. The company intended to call this model 901, which was the internal code-name for the project, but Peugeot owned the trademark on all three-digit model numbers with a zero in the middle, so the name was swiftly changed to 911.
The 917 Launches a Racing Dynasty
Porsche found racing success with the 356, 911, and various competition-only prototypes, but the automaker’s rise to motorsport dominance began with the 917. First shown publicly in 1969, the 917 was the brainchild of Ferdinand Piëch, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche who would later go on to lead the entire Volkswagen Group. The race car used an air-cooled mid-mounted flat-12 engine, and it was so compact, the driver’s feet sat ahead of the front axle. After some early developmental troubles, the 917 became a dominant endurance racer, winning the 24 Hours of Daytona, the Monza 1,000km, the Spa-Francorchamps 1000 km, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans back-to-back in 1970 and 1971. The 917 was a monster, reliably cresting 230 mph at Le Mans in an era when the typical racing prototype couldn’t break 200, and it launched Porsche on a path to becoming the winningest manufacturer in Le Mans history.
911’s Near Death and Resurrection
The late 1970s were difficult for sports car companies, and in 1980 Porsche had its first year of financial losses. The 911 had gone without significant updates and was slated for cancellation, with the front-engine, V8-powered 928 intended to replace it. Newly-appointed CEO Peter Schutz, who was born in Germany but was raised in the U.S., realised that the impending death of the 911—considered the quintessential Porsche sports car—was contributing to low morale at Porsche. Schutz walked into the office of chief Porsche engineer Helmuth Bott, where a chart showed continued production of the 928 and 944, and the end of 911 production in 1981. In a scene that has become legend, Schultz took a marker from Bott’s desk, extending the 911’s line off the chart, onto the office wall, and out the door—signifying that the 911 would never be canceled. “Do we understand each other?” Schultz asked, and Bott nodded in the affirmative.
The World-Beating 959
In 1986, Porsche unveiled a supercar that shared the general shape of the 911, but was shockingly advanced in nearly every way: The 959. Developed to compete in Group B rally racing, the street-legal 959 had a twin-turbo engine making 326 kilowatts, Kevlar composite bodywork, wide-body fenders, and all-wheel drive. It soon became the fastest production car in the world, sprinting from zero to 96 in 3.7 seconds and reaching a 317 kmph top speed.
Amazingly, from 1963 to 1997, Porsche never undertook a full redesign of the 911. In 1998, a brand-new sports car emerged. Internally known as Type 996, the all-new 911 had a completely redesigned body shell and an all-new flat-six engine that, for the first time, was cooled by water rather than air. Early 996s shared their front bodywork and some interior panels with the more affordable mid-engine Boxster, causing some controversy among Porsche fans, but today the 996 is considered the model that saved the Porsche 911.
SUVs, Sedans, and the Future
In 2002, Porsche introduced the Cayenne, the automaker’s first sport-utility vehicle. A few years later, in 2009, the four-door Panamera luxury sedan was launched. Today, Porsche’s best-selling model is the Macan, a small SUV, with the Cayenne not far behind. The automaker also sells an all-electric sport sedan, the Taycan, and is moving toward the future with plans for hybrid and all-electric sports cars.
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Sitting on the Dock of Balmain
Is The Dry Dock Sydney’s Hottest New Pub Renovation?
At its peak, in the late 1890s, Balmain had 55 pubs. They were noisy watering holes that serviced thirsty hordes after a day’s labour at the suburb’s harbourside coal mine and shipyards. Today, Balmain is dotted with charming workers’ cottages set behind picket fences and stolid corner pubs, which have been converted into restaurants and homes.
One such establishment, the Dry Dock on Cameron Street, has undergone a multi-million dollar renovation. As an original public house built in 1857, it remains fixed in a local backstreet and offers a porthole to the suburb’s blue-collar roots.
Locals can still bring their dogs into the front bar, or retreat to the lounge to sit next to a crackling log fire.
The renovation carried out by Studio Isgro and H&E Architects combines rustic touches—like the acid-etched sandstone exterior, exposed brickwork and beams —with elegant light fittings, an incredible sound system and tasteful art. “It has a transportive, escapist quality, where you could be anywhere, or right at home,” says interior designer Bianca Isgro of Studio Isgro, who spent two years on the overhaul. Her team designed a modern gastropub on the site after gutting and stripping the building, which had been neglected for years.
Founder and managing director James Ingram (ex-Solotel and Merivale) has assembled a warm, friendly service team that matches the pub’s character. He says his team has fought hard to preserve the pub’s long-standing connection to residents and to get the mix of old and new right.
“Balmain is home to so many devoted residents who are rightly proud of the suburb’s working-class roots,” says Ingram over a frothy beer in the warm-toned front bar.
“The Dry Dock has been designed to have that timeless feel that stands the test of time.”
The large open kitchen features an oyster bar and serves French-style fare, delicious sides, and hot desserts. The wine list is on point, with something in every price range and a friendly sommelier doing the rounds.
The kitchen is led by seasoned chef Ben Sitton, who previously rattled the pans at institutions including Felix, Uccello and Rockpool Bar & Grill. His kitchen faces a large dining room with unclothed tables, bentwood chairs, tumbled marble floors and exposed trusses that give it a contemporary feel. 
The back of the room overlooks a walled garden, with a giant ghost gum at its centre and views of neighbouring residential fences.
Chef Sitton says his team relishes the opportunity to cook from an expansive modern European repertoire with quality produce. The robust flavours and textures are centred around the smoky quality that comes from Josper charcoal grills, wood-fired ovens, and the rotisserie.
You can order steak frites with charred baby carrots, or baked market fish with a cheesy, potato gratin.
The Peninsula Hospitality Group, the team behind Dry Dock, is now looking to expand its foothold in Balmain by opening at least one other venue.
Visit for the food, stay for the vibe.
The Dry Dock, Public House & Dining Room, 22 Cameron Street, Balmain, NSW 2041. P: 02 9555 1306; drydock.com.au
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Animal Kingdom
A veritable menagerie of high-jewellery sparklers awaits this season.
Crocodiles, lions, snakes and flamingos have all found their way into magnificent high jewellery.
At Chaumet master craftsmen draw inspiration from the balletic flight of swallows. At Cartier a mischievous crocodile makes a cunning circle around the throat and at Paspaley 137 sapphires and gem bejewels fascinators attached to a pair of Keshi pearl studs.
Read on for ideas of how to spoil yourself or someone you love with something from the animal kingdom.
CARTIER
Crocodile necklace
White gold set with emeralds and brilliant-cut diamonds. POA; cartier.com.au
CHANEL
Lion solaire earrings 18k white gold and diamonds. $140,200; chanel.com
A LA VIEILLE RUSSIE
Victorian diamond fish brooch Pavé diamond trout set in silver and gold. $14,300; alvr.com
DAVID WEBB
Bird of paradise brooch Cabochon star sapphire, carved emerald and ruby leaves, brilliant-cut diamonds, 18k gold and platinum. POA; davidwebb.com
CHAUMET
Capturing the aerial movements of swallows, in white and rose gold with marquise-cut diamonds. POA; chaumet.com
A LA VIEILLE RUSSIE
Mississippi River pearl flamingo brooch set Baguette diamond legs and brilliant-cut diamond head, tail and neck, and ruby eye. Circa 1930. $24,000; alvr.com
JEAN SCHLUMBERGER by Tiffany & Co.
Bird on a rock pendant
Platinum and 18k yellow gold, pink sapphires and diamonds (one of which is more than 15 carats). POA; tiffany.com
A LA VIEILLE RUSSIE
Antique green garnet frog brooch Demantoid garnet with old mine diamond eyes, set in gold
and platinum. $71,000; alvr.com
PASPALEY
Wild feather earring enhancer Featuring 43 white diamonds, 137 sapphires and 26 tsavorites set in 18k yellow gold. Keshi pearl studs sold separately. $11,800; paspaley.com
BULGARI
Mediterranean Sapphire Serpenti necklace, nine sapphires from Sri Lanka for a total of 40,81carats evoking snake’s scales are set in a precise and sinuous platinum and pavé diamond body construction culminating in a dramatic pendant tassel including 80 oval-shaped sapphire beads totaling 116 carats. POA’ Bulgari.com
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How To Drink Salon, Guilt-Free with Nick Hildebrandt
Once-in-a-Lifetime Wines By The Glass Come to Melbourne’s Atria and Sydney’s Bentley Restaurant + Bar
Want to eat a succulent starter of pearl meat and smoked lime butter with a glass of 2013 Champagne Salon? Or sink your teeth into chef’s cut Tallow-age beef while sipping a silky glass of 2021 Bass Phillip Pinot Noir?
This month you can.
All through May, wine-loving patrons can order such rare drops by the glass at Michael Greenlaw’s Atria at The Ritz-Carlton in Melbourne, and Brent Savage’s The Bentley Restaurant + Bar in Sydney. Think glasses of Margaux for around $70 and Crozes-Hermitage for under $50.
These precious wines that never grace wine lists, let alone by-the-glass menus, are being offered at 50% below the expected by-the-glass price, courtesy of Coravin’s World Wine Tour.
Coravin is the life-preserving wine tech that allows oenophiles to pour vintage wines without removing the cork. The patented needle and gas system allows for the extraction of fine wine, without exposing the precious vintages to ruinous oxygen.
“This is a great initiative,” says owner and sommelier Nick Hildebrandt from his dimly-lit ground floor venue The Bentley Restaurant + Bar..
“This May we have the opportunity to pour by the glass some of the world’s most sought after wines. Especially Champagne Salon, which is extremely rare, and my favourite Champagne of all time,” he says beaming at the thought of serving the scarce blanc de blancs.
“We have a large following of loyal wine lovers who come to our restaurants and they are super excited to taste these wines at a reasonable price.”
The smiling sommelier continues, “Our guests will have the opportunity to taste a selection of famous and rare wines in pristine condition without spending hundreds or, in some instances, thousands on a bottle.”
Until the end of May, patrons can sample wines from a limited list expertly curated by Coravin, featuring local and international gems. Learn more about Coravin’s World Wine Tour here.
To book visit Atria or Bentley Restaurant + Bar
